Around 13,000 Sydney homes and businesses are preparing to spend a night without power after a severe storm ripped through the city's west bringing trees crashing down on power lines, houses and cars.
The SES received more than 400 calls for help this afternoon as the storm, fuelled by high humidity, brought more than 5000 lightning strikes and dropped temperatures 10 degrees in 20 minutes.
"It's been quite a quick, fast, intense storm that's come," SES spokeswoman Becky Gollings said.
A child who was reported missing in floodwaters in the western Sydney suburb of Shalvey was safely pulled from the water by friends.
https://twitter.com/NSWSES/status/844430325958819841
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for a large part of NSW including the metropolitan area, Illawarra, Hunter, central and southern tablelands forecast regions.
At the peak of the storm, 33,000 homes and businesses in western Sydney suburbs from St Marys through to Mt Druitt and the Hills Districts were left without power.
Endeavour Energy said lightning strikes were the main cause of power outages.
There is not yet an estimate of the time it will take to restore power supply to affected customers until emergency crews make the areas safe.
"Due to the widespread damage, some customers in these areas will be without power overnight until repairs can be completed tomorrow," Endeavour Energy said in a statement.
Residents in one of the worst hit suburbs, Whalan, may have to wait until Friday to have power restored.
https://twitter.com/NSWSES/status/844415860831858695
Active storms approached western Sydney about 3pm but the bureau expects the city to be drenched over several hours.
https://www.facebook.com/dalena.trann/videos/vb.100002617891731/1233231000107485/?type=2
“What we're concerned about is heavy rainfall, the potential for large hailstones and damaging wind gusts with that storm," forecaster Zach Berry-Porter said.
Sydney Olympic Park saw the heaviest rainfall, with 40mm of rain dumped on the area, while 23 millimetres of rain fell at Warragamba in 15 minutes.
“It's also intensified as it moved into Sydney so we could see the weather be even more severe than that," Mr Berry-Porter said.
Wind gusts reached 57km/h in Penrith and 85km/h at Cowra in the central west and Goulburn in the southern tablelands.
https://twitter.com/SydneyAirport/status/844408823465070592
Fallen trees affected roads in a number of areas across western Sydney, including in St Marys, where two of three westbound lanes of the Great Western highway were closed for some time after a tree fell onto power lines.
https://twitter.com/CoffeeMumSwims/status/844419006740254720
Conditions should settle by the end of the week, however, with only a few showers expected on Thursday and Friday.
